Shattered Innocence: Transmigrated Into a Novel as an Extra

Chapter 579: Dream

Lucavionʼs grip tightened around the artifact as the world around him dimmed. The flickering lantern light bled into shadows, stretching unnaturally, devouring the room in creeping darkness. The weight of his own body grew distant, like his limbs were being submerged in thick, unyielding tar.

Down.

And down.

And down.

His breath slowed, each inhale growing heavier, more labored. The edges of his consciousness blurred, thoughts fraying like threads unraveling from an old tapestry.

ʼSo this is how it works, huh?ʼ

The artifact pulsed against his palm, its crystalline core shifting with the colors of a dying ember. A slow, rhythmic beat—like a second heartbeat—syncing with his own.

Lucavion exhaled, sharp and controlled. His fingers twitched against the artifactʼs frame, but his body—his real body—felt more like a concept than something tangible. The air was thick, almost suffocating. The sensation wasnʼt entirely unfamiliar. He had walked the edges of magic before, teetered at the brink of unnatural forces, but this—

This was different.

The sensation of falling wasnʼt external. It wasnʼt the world slipping away from him.

It was him slipping away from the world.

A distortion in space, a slow unraveling of his presence.

He felt his mind straining against the pull, instinctively resisting the descent. Stay aware. Control the pace. But the weight dragging him down was relentless. His vision twisted, fragmented—pieces of a dream-like haze shifting in and out of his awareness. The lantern light, the desk, the parchment Vitaliara had been reading—they all fractured, bending into the abyss.

This isnʼt real. This is the artifactʼs doing.

His fingers curled instinctively. No pain, no sensation—just the growing distance from himself.

Then—

A sharp pulse.

Memory.

Lucavionʼs breath hitched as a flicker of color bloomed through the void. It wasnʼt the artifactʼs glow—it was something deeper, something within him being pulled forth.

A tether.

A single, undeniable thread of memory, one that had long since burrowed into his bones.

A face. A voice.

The past.

ʼDream, was it?ʼ

His lips parted, the words barely forming in his mind. If this thing worked by using deep, emotional memories as an anchor, then—

Lucavion exhaled through his nose. A slow, measured breath.

There was no way around it.

If he wanted this artifact to work, if he wanted it to show him the enemy—

He would have to face that memory again.

His vision wavered. The darkness rippled, shifting like liquid silk. The air thickened with something unseen, something crawling beneath his skin.

The past was waiting for him.

And this time, he had no choice but to let it in.

Lucavionʼs breath hitched as the darkness around him coiled, shifting, rearranging itself. The abyss wasnʼt empty anymore. The void pulsed, and with a slow, creeping inevitability—

It began to take shape.

First, the sound.

A distant horn. Low. Ominous. Reverberating through his chest.

Then, the scent.

Blood. Charred earth. Metal sharpened to a killing edge.

And then—

The battlefield.

The world snapped into focus, and suddenly, he was there again.

Fifteen years old. Standing among his platoon. Hands clenched around the haft of his spear, knuckles white with tension. His body felt lighter, thinner—not yet honed by the years that followed. His armor sat heavier on his frame, unfamiliar, a weight that had yet to become second nature.

And he knew what was coming.

No. No, no, no—

But the moment had already begun.

The horn blared.

Lucavionʼs body moved before he could think, instinct overriding consciousness. His fifteen-year-old self surged forward with the rest of his unit, stepping into the chaos, into the slaughter.

ʼHold the line!ʼ

Vanceʼs voice rang out over the battlefield, just as it had before. Just as it always had.

Lucavion felt the spear in his hands, the rough texture of the wood digging into his palms. He knew what was about to happen, down to the very moment where blood would soak into the dirt beneath his feet.

He recognized every movement.

Every scream.

Every death.

And yet—

His body moved as if it belonged here, as if it had never left.

ʼThis…ʼ

His thoughts frayed at the edges, unraveling as his fifteen-year-old self engaged the first soldier.

CLANK!

The force of the enemyʼs blade rattled up his arms. He fought like he had that day—efficient, trained, but not enough. He was still too weak, too slow. Every move was just barely enough to survive.

The enemy fell back—another replaced him.

ʼThis isnʼt real,ʼ Lucavion thought, yet his body refused to obey any rational sense of detachment. This was real. At least, it was now.

He could feel his muscles burning, the sting of sweat in his eyes, the raw ache of fatigue that he had long since outgrown.

And then, just as before—

That black knight appeared once again.

The moment the memory fully seized him, Lucavion felt it—the unbearable weight of helplessness.

The battlefield unfolded exactly as it had before.

—The Knight of the Wind vanished from his spot.

—Garret fell, his chest run through.

—Mateoʼs throat was slit open before he even realized death had found him.

—Felix.

—Elias.

—Clara.

All of them.

One by one, they died again.

Their bodies collapsed into the dirt, staining the battlefield red, their final moments repeating with brutal precision. The smirk on the knightʼs face, the way his spear carved through flesh as if nothing mattered, the effortless, unshaken steps as he moved through the carnage.

It was all the same.

And Lucavion—the fifteen-year-old Lucavion—

Was frozen.

His body refused to move. His muscles locked, every instinct in his being screaming to flee, to escape, to submit to the inevitable.

ʼMOVE.ʼ

His mind begged, demanded, but his body ignored him.

No, no, not again. I know this. I know how this ends.

And yet, it was happening.

Again.

Again.

Again.

His fingers curled around the shaft of his spear, white-knuckled. The weight of it all pressed against his chest, suffocating.

Then, Clara stepped forward—her stance fierce, defiant. Her mana flared, her hands glowing, her voice shaking but strong.

”Stay back!”

Lucavion knew what would happen next.

She would fall.

She would die.

And he—he would do nothing.

MOVE, DAMN IT.

But his legs wouldnʼt obey.

He was trapped. Not just in the memory—but in who he had been.

The knightʼs green mana flared, swallowing Claraʼs attack like it was nothing. His voice, thick with condescension, slithered through the air like poison.

”Too bad itʼs such a weakling.”

Then—

The spear pierced her abdomen.

Lucavionʼs stomach twisted violently as the exact moment burned into his mind replayed before his eyes.

Clara—shocked. Her breath catching, her fingers twitching as if reaching for something—anything. The slow, cruel twist of the knightʼs weapon as he ripped it from her body, watching as she crumpled to the ground, blood pooling beneath her.

Her eyes—dim, yet still searching.

As if expecting someone to save her.

As if expecting him to save her.

Lucavionʼs breath was ragged, his chest rising and falling too quickly, too unevenly. His hands trembled.

”Clara, no!”

The words left his mouth before he even realized he had spoken them.

And the knight—he turned toward him, just as before.

”Youʼre still alive. Interesting.”

Lucavion clenched his fists.

He remembered what came next.

He would struggle, he would rise—he would be mocked. The knight would carve a scar across his face, leaving him to choke on his own powerlessness.

That had been his fate.

That had been his moment of failure.

And here, inside this memory—

Could he change it?

The thought struck like lightning.

This is a dream.

Lucavionʼs dark eyes widened.

This is a memory, but I am not that fifteen-year-old anymore.

The realization hit him so suddenly, so violently, that something inside him cracked.

This wasnʼt reality.

This was his own mind.

And in his own mind—

Lucavion didnʼt have to be weak.

”MOVE!”

The command wasnʼt just to himself.

It was to the memory itself.

It shattered.

The battlefield flickered—like ink bleeding in water. The weight holding his limbs evaporated, the suffocating air ruptured—

And for the first time, Lucavion stepped forward.

His spear, gripped in both hands, felt real. His breath steadied. The knightʼs smirk flickered—briefly, almost imperceptibly.

Lucavion exhaled.

”You,” he murmured, voice steady, unwavering. His dark gaze locked onto the Knight of the Wind.

The knight blinked.

Thatʼs right. This time, Iʼm not just reliving this.

Lucavion rolled his shoulders, feeling the old wounds of the past like phantom aches—but nothing more.

”I donʼt need to find you.” His smirk was slow, deliberate, curling at the edges of his lips.

”Youʼre right here.”

The wind howled.

The wind howled, a violent, unrelenting force that tore through the battlefield.

But this time—

Lucavion wasnʼt the one trembling beneath it.

The memory wavered, rippling like a reflection on a disturbed pond. Shadows stretched unnaturally, the crimson-stained earth cracking as if the weight of the past could no longer bear its own existence.

And then—

Everything fractured.

The battlefield collapsed inward, the figures of the dead dissolving into nothingness. The Knight of the Windʼs smirk faded, his body flickering like a candleʼs dying flame. The greenish glow of his mana blurred, warping into streaks of light—before the world itself shifted.

Lucavion barely had time to react before his vision was wrenched into something else entirely.

—Stone walls, lined with aged banners.

—A massive wooden table, its surface covered with scattered documents and a single, intricate map.

—Flickering lanterns casting wavering shadows against the walls.

And standing there, in the dim light—

A man.

Tall, broad-shouldered, with an air of authority that clung to him like a second skin. His presence was as sharp as the blade at his hip, his movements slow, methodical. His dark green cloak draped over polished armor, the faint insignia at his shoulder barely visible beneath the worn fabric.

His back was to Lucavion.

He studied the map before him, fingers tracing over battle lines, city names, and routes with a quiet intensity.

Lucavionʼs breath hitched.

He didnʼt need to see the manʼs face to know.

It was him.

The Knight of the Wind.

Older. Different. But unmistakable.

The vision shifted—pulling outward.

A blur of movement, like drifting through a fast-moving current.

Lucavion was yanked from the dimly lit room, spiraling backward as the scene unfolded beyond the walls.

—A fortress. Weathered stone, reinforced battlements.

—Beyond it, rolling fields, stretching into distant, winding roads.

—And further still, a mountain range, its peaks piercing the horizon like jagged blades.

The vision kept retracting, each layer unfolding with agonizing clarity.

Until—

It came back to him.

Lucavionʼs dark eyes locked onto the vision of his older enemy—

And the moment their gazes would have met—

Lucavion woke.

”Haaaah…..Haaaaah…..”

He was back.

Back in the dim glow of his own room, the flickering lanterns casting jagged shadows across the walls. His fingers were still clenched around the artifact, its crystalline core pulsing faintly, as if it had drained every ounce of its power to show him this.

Lucavionʼs head swam, his body still trembling from the aftershock of it all.

But through the lingering haze of his own breath—

A smirk curled at the edges of his lips.

”I found you.”